You won’t find little, pale-yellow packets of Splenda at Dunkin’ Donuts, but you will find little pale-yellow packets of a knockoff version of the sweetener. Heartland Consumer Products, the company behind Splenda, is taking Dunkin’ to court, claiming the coffee-and-donut chain is misleading consumers into thinking they are getting the real Splenda when it’s just a knockoff. [More]

In response to falling sales of diet soda, last year PepsiCo changed the sweetener in its main calorie-free beverage, Diet Pepsi. Noting the health concerns that some customers have about the original sweetener in Diet Pepsi, aspartame, the company switched to a different sweetener last year to try to reverse a sales decline. Now sales are declining even faster. [More]

Many people are allergic to or just plain don’t like artificial sweeteners. Generally, they can avoid consuming them by not buying diet candy or soda. Seagram’s ginger ale pulled a cruel trick on these people recently, though, by silently swapping some sucralose (Splenda) into their drinks. “Let’s see if they notice,” we imagine the folks at Seagram HQ saying. Well, they noticed. [More]

Last spring, the folks at the Cheesecake Factory were responsible for two of the nine items on this list of the most calorific meals in America. Perhaps the restaurant chain can’t fit into its pants anymore, because it is about to introduce a line of (somewhat) slimmed-down cocktails to go with your 2,500-calorie pasta entree.

A new study says that sugar-substitute Splenda might be bad for you, killing “good” bacteria and preventing the absorption of prescription drugs. However, it just so happens that the study was paid for by the Sugar Association, who just so happen to hate Splenda with a deadly passion.

A new study on the effects of low daily doses of the artificial sweetener aspartame shows a statistically significant increase in leukemia, lymphoma and breast cancer in rats. Consumer advocates are calling for the FDA to take another look at the safety of aspartame in light of the study, but the FDA seems uninterested.

Equal, once the nation’s leading brand of artificial sweetener, is suing competitor and current leader Splenda for misleading customers with its tag line “Made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar.” From the New York Times:

“The phrase ‘made from sugar’ may seem simple enough, but it has spawned an epic battle among the parties over proper diction and syntax,” the judge overseeing the case, Gene E. K. Pratter, wrote in an opinion last month.